FIOD – Fighting Fraud

The exhibition FIOD – Fighting Fraud was set up as an escape room experience. Without really being locked up, visitors had to solve fraud cases in five rooms under time pressure. The entrance to the FIOD campus was through the central hall where the theme 75 Years of FIOD was highlighted. Visitors entered the escape room experience from the hall and could get to work and start cracking codes using investigative methods that the FIOD itself works with. Visitors could also search for cyber crime on the Dark Web, observe and join investigations in the DigiLab, track down money launderers and corruption or do a house search.

75 Years of the Fiscal Information and Investigation Service

In the central hall and the corridors leading to the escape rooms, FIOD’s work and structure were highlighted in images, text and objects (including investigative tools). The year 2020 marked the seventy-fifth anniversary of FIOD as a national service that investigates tax fraud. Starting out with only three departments and a total of six employees, one secretary, a borrowed typewriter and two official cars, the FIOD has since grown into an organisation dedicated to identifying and combating fiscal and financial fraud.

Investigations today

The FIOD is known for the raids that are reported in the news. However, before a raid is carried out, FIOD’s financial and cyber investigators conduct a thorough investigation. Together, they put together all the pieces of the puzzle needed to fight financial fraud. And that’s just what visitors could do at this exhibition!

Expo and escape room experience

Good at joining the dots? Alert enough to find all the clues? Visitors could step into the shoes of a FIOD investigator and solve some cases. Even their sense of smell was called on to find out the origin of the tobacco in an illegal cigarette factory. Given the subject matter, the recommended participation age was 12+, but the investigative and deciphering work was easy enough for children aged 10 – and some adults may even have needed their help and ideas!